Tuesday, January 15, 2013

These Are The People The Wall Street Journal Thinks We Should Have Sympathy For?

The Wall Street Journal had an article providing a fairly thorough breakdown of the new tax policies that will now be in effect due to the "fiscal cliff" agreement reached by congress. The article itself wasn't too bad, really. In fact, it was mostly an objective piece. However, it did include one little thing that I thought was worth highlighting, and that was the "info" graphic that accompanied the article:

Yes, in that graphic, every single one of those families makes a six figure income, the lowest being $180 thousand, and yet because of the new tax hikes imposed by Obama, they all appear as though he ran over the family dog.

35 comments:

Yes, those folks will all will pay more taxes. It seems like you are happy about that. Wait a bit and see if you like the results. You may like higher taxes, but you won't like it when unemployment goes up.

You like all these taxes? You think its okay? Well, I hate to tell you but Obama just raised the taxes on 160M workers in the country by 2%. It comes to $125B in 2013. Much more than those tax increase for those rich folks you don't seem to like. It will come to $2000 per family - forever...A very big hit to America's middle and lower income groups.

It is like the family that just is addicted to credit cards and does not think they have a problem by spending more then they make. In the article it shows pulling 22k out of someones budget. This is more than you can put in a 401k and IRA combined....which is supposed to fund your retirement correct. This entire 1% stuff needs to die, there will always be someone that has more than me but I am ok with it. There is no reason they deserve to pay a higher % of income of tax... 100,000 x 20% is higher then 50,000 x 20%. Both people get the same benefit from the government but the person earning more already pays more.

Chris, you don't seem to understand how progressive taxation works, but I'll give you a hand: every person in the US pays the same percentage on the same aggregate dollar earned (excluding deductions). The person that makes a million a year pays the same percentage on his first $30,000 that the person making only $30,000 pays. It's perfectly reasonable and fair. The biggest difference currently is that rich people that derive a disproportionate share of their income from passive investments pay a *smaller* percentage than those that derive their income from working. *That* is not fair and what you should be complaining about.

If we follow their crazy train of thought to its conclusion, then paying zero taxes will create zero unemployment.

Since most economic studies have proven otherwise, I've concluded that most conservatives suffer from the Dunning-Kruger Effect; They're simply too ignorant to realize just how ignorant they really are.

I think Chris' point was that different people pay different amounts for the same services. For example, someone that makes $30k a year will pay ~$9k in taxes and someone that makes $300k a year will pay ~$90k in taxes. Both people get the same roads, the same military, the same homeland defense, the same CIA, FBI, etc. So Joey walks into a bar and buys a beer for 30 cents yet Bob has to buy the same beer for $3.00, just because Bob makes more money. In the most fundamental sense, this is unfair. Making the taxes progressive in no way changes this point.

When I was younger and made less money, I owned a 25 year old Buick Skylark, an assortment of cheap stuff that I know from experience could be shoved into the Skylark in a pinch, and perhaps as much as $1,000 in the bank at any given time). My wife could tell a similar story, except she drove a 3 cylinder Chevy Sprint

Now we make much more - not in the 1% range by any stretch, but much more than we did back then. Now we have shares of stock. A couple IRAs. Several rental properties.

Back when we were younger, the first, last, and only line of defense of our assets was us. What kept someone from robbing my stuff was the fact that I was there to defend it. Now, I depend on the government to defend my assets. The rental properties we own, we own only because the government guarantees their title. The stocks, same thing. Ditto the IRA. It ain't because they're afraid of me that people don't squat in my rentals, defraud the companies I own shares of, or steal from my bank account. It's because the government would come down hard on them for doing it, a heck of a lot harder than if someone stole a few sweaters from the back of a 25 year old Buick even though the latter represents more of the owner's wealth than the former. And I have no doubt that Bill Gates is even more dependent on the government to defend his assets than I am.

That service - defense of assets - doesn't come for free. It has to be paid for somehow. And it is only fair that those who benefit from that service the most pay the most.

Indeed, the Clinton tax hikes on the rich in the 90s sure sent the economy into a tailspin, right?

Also, fun fact, both John Boehner and Mitt Romney were against the payroll tax cut extension.

Furthermore, you were complaining about how Obama's being mean to the rich with his new taxes, while also complaining that he supposedly wanted the middle class to pay MORE cause of the payroll tax cut expiration? Make up your mind. Does Obama hate the rich or the non-rich?

I don't like that additional $2,000 either, however that increase is mostly the reinstatement of Social Security/Medicare premiums that had been temporarily reduced.

I have to ask; when taxes where far higher in the upper income brackets than they are today (even with this oh so horrible increase!) why was unemployment lower and the level of prosperity across the board so much higher?

Of course there's also the argument to be made that when there were no income taxes at all that the country was doing pretty well too. But that was back before there was a Federal Reserve and the US printed its own money, debt free. We also didn't have an empire to protect. Maybe we should just get rid of the Fed and curtail military spending? Just a thought.

Sure, if you don't tax the rich they'll keep on employing labor, just like they've been employing labor since this recession started. Oh wait, they stopped, that's *why* the recession started.

Rich people stop emplying labor because they've sucked every penny out of the system and there's nothing left to do but sit on the wealth like Smaug. They don't stop because taxes went up, and they never start because taxes go down.

What all these sad people fail to realize, maybe because they read only the Wall Street Journal, is that taxes on a single person earning, say, a measly $113,000 a year, will go up -- percentage-wise -- more than the wealthy sad people's taxes are rising. Why? Because the Journal is figuring payroll tax into this equation, and the sad people don't pay Social Security payroll tax on income above $113,700.

The reason the sad black couple's taxes didn't go up is because they don't pay into Social Security tax at all. Because they don't have jobs. I think they're sad because the Journal decided to portray black people as the "typical" kind of people who mooch off Social Security and Medicare so our unborn grandchildren are already destined for the poorhouse of the future.

The graphic completely obscures the fact that the sad people get a better tax break than the lucky duckies living on half the sad people's income. It's hard to believe the Journal would do something so deceptive. Isn't it?

It's well known in the reality based community that the economy and employment rate both do better when tax rates are higher on high incomes. (The current WSJ ideologues don't remember how well we were doing in the 1950s when the top marginal income tax rate was 91%.)

See http://conceptualmath.org/philo/taxgrowth.htmto see how tax cuts hinder growth, and tax increases support growth.

It would be interesting to know the true demographics of this. How many single-parent two-kid families have an income of $260,000 or more? Where do they live? How many married couples with four children have $650,000 in income? How many singles with $230,000 in income, $25,000 coming from investments?

The minority couple are down in the mouth because they are RETIREES. What you read as depression is actually guilt and shame. Shame at leaching off the rest of us hardworking, six-figure 'Muricans, doing our important jobs while THEY swan about on their entitlements like the rest of the filthy moochers.

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